


The Like Button

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Community: comment_fic, F/M, Het, Rare Pair, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 16:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10442682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: Joe and Caitlin go Facebook official.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boomersoonerash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomersoonerash/gifts).



> Theme : social media  
> Prompt : The Flash, Caitlin Snow/Joe West, They finally go facebook official as a couple.  
> http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/800107.html?thread=102559083#t102559083

Carla Tannhauser is a successful woman. 

A brilliant scientist, feted the world over for her accomplishments. Head of her own lab, a woman breaking the glass ceiling of a male dominated industry. Possessor of a busy social life, both work related and not, she knows that hers is a life to be envied. 

So perhaps it's natural - understandable even - that the one area in which she failed is the one she can't stop thinking about. 

She was never a natural parent, she'd be the first to admit that. Caitlin had always been a daddy's girl, from the moment she was born. But Carla did love her, always would. It was just that she was busy with work, and then her husband got sick and then he died and it all just simply got away from her. Before she knew it, she and Caitlin, never close to begin with, were barely speaking and Carla didn't know how to bridge the gap that had formed between them. 

After a while, it was easier not to try. 

She still thinks about her daughter, wants to know how she's doing and every day she thanks a God she's not even sure she believes in any more for the invention of Facebook. She uses it herself for mainly business and networking reasons - it's invaluable when it comes to PR - but it's also an invaluable means of keeping up to date in what's going on in her daughter's life. 

Or at least it was. 

In the olden days, when STAR Labs was a functioning facility that Carla despised with jealous fury, Caitlin's account was regularly updated, and if she wasn't the one doing it, then she was regularly tagged in pictures alongside an extremely handsome, smiling, young man, the kind of young man any young woman would be proud to introduce to her mother. 

Carla knew what he looked like, knew his name and all about him, before Caitlin called to tell her she was engaged. 

But she never did meet Ronnie Raymond. 

Caitlin insisted she didn't want help planning the wedding, insisted they'd pay for it themselves, insisted there was no hurry for Carla to come to Central City. 

Then the particle accelerator exploded and Ronnie died and Caitlin stopped updating her Facebook, stopped returning Carla's calls. 

Over the last few years, there's been limited activity. Mostly when someone tags her in a photo, usually someone called Cisco Ramon. Carla wonders sometimes if he's Caitlin's new man, wonders if she'll ever get to meet him. After Caitlin comes to her lab, after she sees her ice powers, she starts to doubt it, starts to worry about her daughter even more, wonders what will happen to her, who will look out for her. 

She gets her answer the day she gets an email notification that "Caitlin Snow has updated her status." 

Carla has never clicked on a link so fast in her life. 

Sure enough, there is the update. 

"Caitlin Snow is in a relationship." 

There is a new profile picture of her daughter, smiling for the camera. And beside that picture is the picture of the man with whom she's in her new relationship, a man who, Facebook informs her, is called Joe West. 

Facebook also informs her that he's a police captain in Central City, that he has two kids, one of whom, the daughter, seems to be extremely friendly with Caitlin if the number of pictures of the two of them together - untangled, which is why Carla's never seen them before - is any indication. Which makes sense because one look at Joe's daughter puts her at around the same age as Caitlin and one look at Joe puts him at around Carla's own age. 

It's not what Carla was expecting to put it mildly. 

Then another notification appears - Caitlin has posted a picture. 

Carla clicks on it and there she is, her little girl, now a beautiful woman, smiling at Joe West in a way Carla hasn't seen her smile in years. The photo is taken outside, the two of them sitting on a blanket and there's a banner behind them, "Movies at Hoffher Park." Caitlin's not looking at the camera, only had eyes for the man beside her and when Carla can drag her eyes away from her daughter's face, she realises that Joe West is looking at her with the same sort of smile on his face. 

Carla's breath catches in her throat when she sees his expression because she knows it, has seen it before. 

Her own husband used to look at her the same way. 

Carla looks at that picture for a long time, tears stinging her eyes. Not tears of sadness though. No, she's not upset, well, maybe a little for herself. But for Caitlin, they are only tears of happiness - her daughter has been through so much pain, so much hurt, and that's only what Carla knows about. She deserves every bit of happiness life can give her. 

Carla's finger hovers over the screen of her iPhone and she's all ready to move it down, click the centre button and turn off the app. After all, Caitlin doesn't want to hear from her, she knows that well enough by now. 

She knows that. 

But she still takes a deep breath, moves her finger on to the screen and presses the like button. 

*

When Joe walks into his living room and sees Caitlin looking at her phone, a strange expression on her face, he feels his stomach twist because for as long as he's known Caitlin, a look like that has never meant anything good. Crossing the room, he puts two mugs of coffee down on the table, sits down beside her and touches her knee gently. 

"Everything ok?" he asks as he glances quickly at her phone and sees the Facebook app open. 

She's frowning when she says, "My mom just liked the picture of us I put up." 

Joe blinks. "You're friends with your mom on Facebook?" Not that there's anything unusual about that normally; after all, he's friends with all his kids. But their relationship is nothing like the one Caitlin and her mom have. 

Her lips twist. "Ronnie set my account up for me. He sent the request without asking me... he just assumed..." She smiles softly, the way she does when a fond memory comes back to her. "I think that was actually the cause of our first real fight." She shakes her head as she continues, "Anyway, the amount of times I use the thing, it didn't seem to matter." 

Joe reaches out carefully, tilts her phone towards him so he can see the picture. It happens to be one of his favourites, the two of them captured mid private joke at a movie in Hoffher Park; he actually has it printed out in his wallet. "It's a good picture," he says carefully and she nods. 

"I know." That same smile is still on her lips when she leans in and presses them against his. He responds in kind, moves his hand from her knee to the back of her head as he deepens the kiss and they lose track of time for a little while. 

When they move away from each other, Caitlin snuggles against him, rests her head on his shoulder. "I guess you've got my mom's seal of approval."

Joe chuckles. "I'll never get used to social media," he tells her. He only has a Facebook account because Iris and Barry set one up for him; he rarely bothers to use it. It's one of the things he and Caitlin have in common. Indeed the only reasons they'd gone "Facebook Official" were (a) to shut up his kids about it and (b) to tell as many people about them as possible in one fell swoop. 

"It's just..." Caitlin's voice is hesitant, like she's thinking out loud. "She liked the picture less than five minutes after I put it up." 

"So she has notifications set up." Joe knew all about those; Cisco had retooled his account settings once and Joe had spent one long evening when the STAR Labs gang had had one of their rare evenings out where his phone had pinged every couple of minutes to the point where he'd been about ready to throw the damn thing out the window. He'd settled for deleting the app and getting a very hungover Cisco to reinstall it and change his settings the next day. 

Caitlin's voice grows quieter. "I didn't think she cared enough to do that." 

Joe swears his heart breaks a little at that. "After everything you've been through... after what happened the last time you saw her... maybe she just doesn't know how to reach out." 

"Story of my life." Caitlin doesn't sound bitter, just sad. Joe tightens his grip on her shoulder, presses a kiss to the top of her head. 

"But at least you know now," he says. "That's something, right?" He feels her nod and he reaches down, hooks a finger under her chin and tilts her face up. "Right?" 

She smiles, touches his cheek with her hand, nods again before she pulls him in for another kiss. 

Their cups of coffee go cold but he doesn't care. He can always make more.


End file.
